Night Owl Cards

(Note: This post appeared today on the Baseball Reference Blog . It's my first contribution to the "Card of the Week" feature). The design chosen each year for a baseball card set can often determine whether collectors love, hate or remain ambivalent about that set. One aspect of design is how that design enhances or interferes with the photo on the card. Some of you might know that the 2008 Topps set was notable for a particular design flaw. The “bump” that featured the Topps logo and jutted into the top portion of the card photo affected how Topps displayed the photos on its cards. Often, the photo images were shrunken so the player’s head would not be covered up by the Topps “bump.” That particular set got me thinking about whether there were other sets in which the design forced Topps’ hand as to how it displayed its photos. I quickly scanned Topps flagship sets over the years. I found out that, in most sets since Topps went with photography over illustration...